


baking in the rain

by trash_mammall



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Baking, Comfort, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Rain, can be read as slash ?, it's literally just soft y'all, just a couple lads baking, roman and patton are more-so mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24853819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trash_mammall/pseuds/trash_mammall
Summary: It's a rainy day, and Logan isn't getting any work done, so who is he to decline when Virgil asks if he'd like to bake some cookies?
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil & Creativity | Roman & Logic | Logan & Morality | Patton, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Logic | Logan Sanders
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	baking in the rain

The day had begun with rain softly beating against the living room windows of the Mindpalace. Everyone had been slow to get started, drowsy conversation over breakfast taking the place of boisterous excitement regarding the new day’s promises. Roman bantered languidly, Patton interjected cheeky puns, Virgil scoffed with a sip of coffee, Logan shook his head with a hidden grin, all done under a layer of haze.

The day moved on in a similar fashion. Whether hidden in their room or lounging in the common, time had devolved into a foggy sense of eternity. Logan found himself frustrated, the blur of his focus that came with the siren song of outside drizzle resulting in a distinct lack of productivity. He couldn’t bring himself to tap his foot or click his pen, the atmosphere in his room making that seem decidedly inappropriate, so instead he simply pushed himself away from his desk.

His chair rolled with a low rumble, Roman would say something about it mirroring distant thunder, and he let out a slow breath, staring out the window situated just to the side of his desk.

Logically, he thought, it was clear he was simply wasting his time. He had never perfected the art of working through the rain, thus he knew that, no matter how hard he stared at his work, there was nothing he could do to make any of this feel anything more than tedious. It would be a net loss, both in the sense of his work untouched and his enjoyment of the weather’s music soured.

Logan closed his eyes.

He took another breath, listening acutely to the tapping against his window.

And then there was a tapping against his door, nearly masked by the rain, at which Logan’s eyes blinked open.

With a swivel of his chair and a few deft steps, thankful for something to do, Logan pulled open his door to come face-to-face with a set of tired eyes. Virgil had his arms crossed, a habit of his Logan had long since familiarized himself with.

(Different studies have determined slightly varying theories, however crossing one’s arms may be an attempt at comforting oneself – a “self hug,” so to speak – a type of stress relief, a way of masking insecurity by lessening the extent to which one feels exposed, and as an unconscious reflex against anxiety in moments of distress.)

“Hello, Virgil. How may I help you?”

Virgil stopped shifting his weight from side to side, seemingly relaxing at Logan’s demeanor. Logan would count that as a victory on his part. Who he was competing against, or what he was competing for, was unimportant.

“Are you, I dunno, busy?” Virgil asked, shrugging a shoulder.

“Right now?”

Virgil nodded once.

Logan’s eyes darted back to his desk. Part of him demanded he say _Yes, actually, I’m quite busy working on our schedule because if we don’t follow this schedule then Roman will get off track and Patton will enable him and your anxiety will heighten. All of this will result in Thomas devolving into a highly unproductive lifestyle, causing me to become frustrated with all of you despite only truly having myself to blame for not getting the schedule done in the first place. So, to answer your question, Virgil, I am_ quite _busy forcing myself to sit at my desk for hours until I can perform adequately and finish my task._

That part of him, he was almost ashamed to admit, was infinitesimal.

So instead of saying any of that, he turned back to Virgil and replied, “No, I appear to be available for the rest of the day. Is there something you’d like?”

Virgil’s lip twitched, the beginnings of one of his trademark smirks, though the cause of it escaped Logan, much to his chagrin. “Yeah, would you wanna bake something? I found this cookie recipe in the kitchen and… I dunno, it just feels like one of those days, y’know?”

_Bad for your health_ , Logan could say. _Unnecessary sugar content._

Virgil’s brows scrunched and he adjusted his hoodie, obviously debating whether he should back out of the request. Logan had interacted with all of the sides long enough to recognize when each of them were tempted to backpedal and cover up their tracks.

So he hummed, “Sounds like an excellent plan, Virgil,” stepping into the hall and closing his bedroom door behind him.

Logan wasn’t a fan of baked goods. Beyond the obvious negative impacts of repeated indulgence in such unhealthy foods, he had never had a taste for the sugary side of the spectrum. If he were to eat something that coated his tongue in sweet syrup, such as Crofters, he always aimed to balance it out with something more neutral, such as a biscuit. There was no “neutral” that could go with a cookie. That being said, the relieved sense of joy that radiated out from Virgil’s slumped shoulders and feathered sigh was far more important to Logan, currently, than any flavour preference in the world.

So Logan followed Virgil down into the kitchen, and they both began fumbling their way through the beginning steps.

“Have you ever baked before?” Virgil asked, unceremoniously placing a bag of flour on the counter as Logan fumbled with the standmixer’s attachment.

Logan huffed, placing his hands on his hips. “No. Patton has traditionally been the baker among us, though, if memory serves, those tended to end in fearsome messes more often than not. Who’s to say he was ever adept at it.” He glanced at the recipe once again, raising a brow. “I will say this does seem rather… straightforward. It’s measurements and a procedure, nothing more.”

Virgil shrugged in noncommittal acceptance, getting out the rest of the ingredients and placing them side-by-side on the counter. Logan, in turn, retrieved the last of the measuring implements they would need, and the two took a steadying breath.

At first glance it was, perhaps justifiably, rather daunting. Neither one of them had any previous experience, had never even properly looked at a recipe, so it would make sense that they entered the endeavor with some discomfort.

After the first steps, however, Virgil counting _one, two_ cups of sugar, Logan melting the butter in 30 second increments in the microwave, they quickly fell into a rhythm.

(Logan had heard, once, that it was ideal to ease the butter when melting it. Using too high a setting on the microwave resulted in the butter making a mess, as well as becoming dangerous to handle. He had decided he would be in charge of making sure the butter didn’t bubble or pop, instead keeping a scrutinizing eye as solid transitioned into liquid.)

Logan stopped Virgil before he could put in the eggs, mentioning the relatively low temperature it took to cook an egg, and so Virgil turned to the dry ingredients. Logan heard Virgil counting to himself, using a knife to flatten each cup, each teaspoon. When he heard the gentle scratching of a whisk, Logan swiftly cracked the eggs and added the vanilla, giving the wet ingredients a moment to combine.

With each step they both consulted the recipe, and with each step they both found themselves more comfortable in what they were doing.

The only moment of dissonance was when it came to the chocolate chips.

“Virgil, the recipe only calls for a cup and a half of chocolate chips. What do you mean you want to dump the entire bag?”

“I _mean_ the recipe doesn’t know who we’re feeding. L, if we only put a cup and a half of chocolate chips, Patton will be sad and Roman will be pissy.”

“I see your point, but I still think the _entire bag_ is a little extreme.”

They quickly came to a compromise, Virgil proceeding to add chocolate chips to the batter until Logan told him to stop. Virgil claimed it still wasn’t enough, but let it go with a remarked, “Your funeral.”

With the oven preheated, Virgil sitting on the counter, and Logan methodically placing each dough ball on the pan, the two fell into a companionable silence. After Logan slid the first tray in, he started on the next, and Virgil began cleaning up the dishes left in their wake. He was careful not to let any of the utensils collide, having a history of flinching back at each metallic impact, and Logan let the movement around him turn into white noise with the rain outside.

Soon the second tray was prepared, the kitchen was clean, and all they had left to do was wait.

“Why do you sit on the counter, Virgil?” Logan asked after a few minutes, the Side in question perched on the counter with his eyes closed and head leaned back.

Virgil hummed, nose wrinkling in thought, before he looked down at Logan. “I like the height, for one. But I guess I also like the implications of using something that _isn’t_ a chair _as_ a chair. What is and isn’t used as a chair is in my control. Plus, I dunno, rebellion.”

Logan nodded slowly, letting the words circulate in his mind as the timer ticked down.

Eventually the gentle alarm on Logan’s phone sang out, breaking through the air in a way Logan hoped wasn’t as startling as some other alarms tended to be. Virgil had insisted on checking on the cookies in the final remaining minutes, so neither were surprised when Logan took out the tray with a batch perfectly cooked.

As Logan slid in the second tray, the first resting on the stovetop to cool slightly before the cookies could be transferred to a cooling rack, Virgil tapped his foot against Logan’s hip from the counter.

  
“I have a new vocab word for your cards.”

The minutes ticked down in ease, Logan and Virgil leaning into the timeless air around them. Without any other stimuli, only the hum of the oven and the weather outside, they were wrapped in a world all on their own. It was a world so small, Logan swore he could fit it in his pocket if only he could pick it up. To have such a microcosm of comfort and safety so accessible, Logan almost wished he _could_ steal this world away.

But as the final timer ended, Logan realized this wasn’t some hypothetical scenario he would never get his hands on, or an experiment impossible for him to perform. This was just him and Virgil in the kitchen of the Mindpalace. This was a rainy afternoon they had both decided was not meant to be spent alone.

And watching as Virgil smiled into his first bite, quipping that it could have done with more chocolate chips but it was begrudgingly acceptable, Logan realized this world didn’t have to be a one-time miracle fabricated by each small event shaping their characters up until this afternoon. This wasn’t a fucking leap across the Grand Canyon, they were _in their kitchen_.

The silence was broken when he heard Roman thundering down the stairs, declaring that he could smell the cookies from a mile away. Virgil was snickering long before Patton could swing himself off the stairs by the banister’s end, calling out a pun Logan refused to humour. With three cookies in three hands, eyes fell on Logan.

He glanced between them, finally taking the bait as he put away the trays and asking, “What is it?”

Virgil nodded his head at the pile of cookies on the rack. “You still haven’t tried one. You legally have to eat one or else it doesn’t count.”

The other two nodded, chocolate melting on their fingers, and Logan sighed because sometimes you have to pick your battles to preserve the peace.

He bit into a cookie, shooting an _Are You Happy Now_ glare at each of the Sides in front of him, and let the others settle into the back-and-forth Logan had long since associated with home. The cookie, unsurprisingly, coated his lips in chocolate and his mouth in rich goo, but it tasted better than anything he’d ever eaten before.

Yes, he thought, feeling warmth pool in his chest. This would happen again.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, i hope you enjoyed ! it's a personal headcannon that Patton and Roman are the cookers while Logan and Virgil are the bakers :,) regardless, i hope this perhaps added a little warmth or comfort to your day/night.
> 
> stay safe, take care of yourself!
> 
> tumblr: trash-mammall (my sanders sides sideblog: scholarly-arachnid)


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